User blog:Xunderscore/Blog 1: Necromancer Breakdown
This Blog is inspired by the amazing Bpcookson's (hope you see this!)"The Wizened Wizard," blog which I had tons of fun reading it. I wanted to do something similar so here it is. So, after finally beating the game with a combination of a Battlemage/Wizard/Ninja, I've decided to stray away from the Wiki's Character Builds section and try to make my own build. I'll be using the New Game+ function to complete my build, however I'll completely finish the skill trees of the classes I'll be using and give you my opinion on them and their skills. I'm no pro at it, but I already the end result in mind. I'm hoping this'll turn out to be a good one, and if not, at least I had fun :D Well, let's get started. The focus of my first play through is to get the Necromancer skill set. The Necromancer is an engine of destruction that uses the corpses of their victims as fuel. This means that, starting off, it’ll be really hard to kill off enemies. However, once you have a good kill streak going and corpses litter the battlefield, you can start unleashing chaos on your enemies or raise your small army of undead. I’ll only be needing Withering and Wandering Plauge for my end product, but the Necromancer is one my favorite classes and I just have to experience playing through it all.To start with, I got both Staff Master and Raise Skeleton at Level 3 after rushing through the Necromancer's Keep to level a few times. It's not much to work with, and at this point I can't really kill fast enough to replenish my Skeletons before they all die out. After a quick money grind to get enough for two Mystic Journals, I got to Level 5 and got Tainted Blood. It’s not really anything special, specially since not much mobs use holy and unholy spells. At Level 6, I got Wandering Plague which gives me a bit more DPS. Its indefinite time limit and ability to switch over to other mobs are very helpful especially when starting in an area when you've got no Skeletons summoned. I finally found a shop that sold another Mystic Journal, and with their help got to Level 7, where I learned Withering. The only good thing it does for you at this point is that it increases Wandering Plauge’s crit chance, which is a nice little boost. Summon Mummy at Level 8 is pretty useful. It’s not anything too awesome, although it does give you a bit more room to work in and it’s much more trusty than the Skeletons since it has no time limit. The skill itself also has a pretty good CD, which isn’t really that long, or at least, not long enough for you to be a free kill when you’ve blown all your CD’s. Getting to Level 9, I got Corpse Explosion. Now we're getting somewhere. In my opinion, this is the first really useful skill that appears when going in for a full Necromancer play through. Even at its early levels, it deals pretty decent damage. In the earlier stages, it’s a useful way of cleaning up leftover mobs, but in the late game it gets so much better, although I’ll discuss that later. It also works in synergy with Raise Skeleton. When your Skeletons die or run out of time, they turn into a corpse that counts as fuel for Corpse Explosion. You literally have walking dynamites that you can trigger once they die for extra damage. I simply cannot describe the satisfaction of seeing a strong mob take out all your Skeletons and, as they start walking towards you with victory in mind, blasting them to pieces in three different places. Reaching Level 10 gave me Army of Doom. Like most Necromancer skills, it’s nothing too amazing, although it does boost your Mummy and your Skeletons a bit. Even at this point, leveling is still quite slow. Dark Harvest at Level 12 heals roughly around 1/3 of your maximum health in exchange for a corpse. Like Corpse Explosion, the corpses of your summoned Skeletons counts as targets for Dark Harvest. It’s a nice skill to have after killing all the monsters in the room and replenishing your health before moving on to the next. Using two Mystery Eggs really speeds up the leveling process. When I got to Level 14, I got Cursed Knowledge. This helps you kill of those pesky skeletons off faster. It makes a difference even in the colosseum, since most of the casters are Skeletons. With Level 16 comes Mass Hysteria. It’s starting to get real. In my experience, this great CC skill can be used by most of the classes without hindering the play style of the character. You can use it to take the heat off you and give yourself room to either summon more things or cast some of your more damaging spells. I find myself depending on it quite a bit especially when I’m outnumbered, and due to the fact that it can deal damage on its own, I’m still killing off a few enemies while waiting for my CD’s to recharge. Ah, Soul Mass. You get this awesome skill at Level 18. This skill is what I consider to be the bread and butter of this class. With a fairly good amount of damage and a decent CD, it’s an important asset that allows you to make more corpses on the field, which you can use for either dealing damage or healing yourself. The only downside to this is that each projectile it generates seeks out the nearest enemy, which means that it won’t focus fire on the highlighted enemy. Level 19 comes with Aura of Disease. It sounds pretty bad at first, but in practice, I found out that this skill does wonders. It does decent damage at a decent rate, which hits in a small radius around you. It allows for more damage, which means more corpses lying around. The final skill is learned upon reaching Level 22, and it's Slay Living. It’s a large gamble whether or not to use this in any build at all, although for a full Necromancer play through it kinda does its part. It’s better to use this against the annoying tanks or beefed up mages you spot in the field especially in the colosseum. A good example is the Green Cyclops. Since it has a really high defence and can summon Goblins, you should kill it before anything else. Slay Living isn’t as reliable as the other spells, since if it fails it only deals minor unholy damage(think of Power Strike but with unholy damage and weaker). At this point, the Necromancer skill tree is complete! I’ve grinded in the colosseum a few times to test out the pure Necromancer build, and I guess it’s pretty decent. Most of my battles start off with me planting Wandering Plague on a monster and summoning a Mummy. After that, I use Soul Mass to get some corpses set not the field. When a new wave starts, I turn them all into Skeletons. Whenever the Skeletons get killed, I use Corpse Explosion to kill off the monsters that my minions couldn’t kill, then turn them into Skeletons. When a mage or a tank shows up, I attempt to use Slay Living. Whether it succeeds or not, I always use Mass Hysteria afterwards. As you can see, every skill has its use. Here’s a quick tip list for when to use which, assuming you fight in the arena: *'Wandering Plague': Use this whenever you can. *'Summon Mummy': Try to keep your Mummy up at all times. *'Soul Mass': You can also just use this whenever you can, but prioritize the first 2 above. *'Mass Hysteria': Use this whenever a group of mages or a tank appears. *'Slay Living': In order of priority, use this on 1)Green Cyclops 2)Any mage 3)Mob with the most health *Whenever there are corpses from ENEMIES: #Use Raise Skeleton. (Optional) If low on HP, use Dark Harvest. *Whenever there are corpses from your SKELETONS #Use Corpse Explosion to kill off mobs. #Use Raise Skeleton on mobs' corpses. (Optional) If low on HP, use Dark Harvest. Category:Blog posts